1950 Martin T-18 Tiple – Used

After going months and months without having a nice tiple to offer, this is the second prime post-WWII example to turn up. This one has no cracks to the body or the neck, the parts and finish are all original, frets show very little wear and the neck is nice and straight. Yes there’s some playing wear to the surface, but please check the photos and be aware that someone used a capo on it which didn’t have an adequate pad on the clamp. The result is that there are little marks in the barrel of the neck.

Because they’re strung with steel strings (ten of ’em!), Martin tiples deliver a room-filling ringing tone without being played hard, making them a joy for uke players who are tired of having their chords buried by louder instruments in the group. Please note that the saddle on all Martin tiples is a fret, and that the pairs and triples of strings are different gauges. This means that perfect intonation of each string, such as the octave matching the harmonic at the 12th fret, simply isn’t possible. But when playing chord backup this isn’t an issue, as you’ll hear when listening to recordings of tiples from the swing era (do a search on YouTube for “The Cats and the Fiddle, I miss you so”). The fiddle in that group, btw, was a string bass!

Although Martin started offering tiples in the early 1920s, when the uke craze was in full swing, those in the know much prefer the later versions over tiples from Martin’s earlier “golden era”. Why? Because the later versions have modern T frets, while earlier Martin tiples have bar stock frets (which are much harder to work on and don’t tend to keep the tiple neck as straight).

This example has some playing wear to the spruce top but we can’t find any cracks or signs of repairs, and it’s original throughout. It also comes with an excellent fitted rectangular hardshell case (because of their unique shape and long headstock, finding a good case for tiples can be difficult, or costly, and often both). Gryphon hasn’t had a Martin tiple this good in ages, our prediction is that it won’t last long.